MARKING THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ATOMIC BOMBINGS OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI (Scholarships available)

Join us for this national gathering marking the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and offer Campaign of Non-Violence promoters and others with significant opportunities to deepen the vision and practice of nonviolent change.

Social Action & Science

Being With DyingThis Professional Training Program for Clinicians in Compassionate Care of the Seriously Ill and Dying is fostering a revolution in care of the dying and seriously ill. Clinicians learn essential tools for taking care of dying people with skill and compassion.

ChaplaincyA visionary and comprehensive two-year program for a new kind of chaplaincy to serve individuals, communities, the environment, and the world.

You can contribute to the Resident Program:
People from all over the world come to Upaya to
practice, serve, and learn. Upaya completely supports their presence
as they stay with us from three months to a year. Please support
this program.

It has been a powerful ten days of intensive study and practice with the 41 chaplain candidates.

She leaves Upaya this Wednesday for ten days, first going to San Francisco and the Being Human Conference. Then on Sunday, to Washington DC for a two-day conference at the Library of Congress on stress; Wednesday morning, she consults at Johns Hopkins Medical School, then travels to Boston and Amherst for the Mind and Life Board meeting. Friday, she flies to Denver for a meeting on end-of-life care; and on Sunday to New York and the United Nations for a meeting sponsored by Bhutan on crafting an approach to global well-being. She returns to Upaya on April 3.

News about Trips to Nepal and Japan in 2013: Please note that there are a number of additions to our program and retreat calendar. And for those who plan far in advance, in addition to Roshi's trip to Nepal this year and next, she will be going with Sensei Kaz Tanahashi to Japan in the fall of 2013. Early registration for these trips is advised.

FEATURE ARTICLES

The Buddhist Way of Being Present to Suffering: Bernie Glassman

Roshi Bernie Glassman will lead the retreat MAKING PEACE: The World As One Body, Upaya, August 3 - 5. Click here for details.

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Doing service for others as a spiritual practice is a way to be in the world without separation. In the Buddhist tradition, we call this recognizing that everything is an expression of emptiness. The Heart Sutra says:

Form is no other than emptiness, Emptiness no other than form; Form is precisely emptiness, Emptiness precisely form. Sensation, perception, reaction and consciousness Are also like this. All things are expressions of emptiness.

Form is the world of phenomena: spiritual teachings, individuals and ideas. Emptiness is the oneness of life, which means life as it is, without any distinctions. We get confused when we see others as separate from us, when we take form alone for reality...

However, to see that "all things are expressions of emptiness" means to recognize that each one of us is totally affected by every other person. We are mutually interdependent. The part is the whole and the whole is the part. If we see that we are all interconnected, we can break down the barrier between Self and Other and experience that we are all One.

There are many ways to be in the world with separation. If you walk down the street and divert your eyes when a homeless person says hello, this is separation. You may take it further by avoiding the neighborhood with homeless people altogether. You are physically separating yourself from other members of society because they don't fit your idea of how people should live.

While engaging a homeless person, you can still hold onto a sense of separation. If you enter a soup kitchen, you will see things that you typically do not see: people who haven't showered for days or men who are drunk and arguing with each other at 6 a.m. If you get wrapped up in thinking, "All men should be clean and sober and polite" or, "Society should offer jobs and rehab for these men," you will get overwhelmed, drowning in sadness or anger. Your thoughts about how the world should be are separating you from the experience of what is in front of you.

But what happens if you sit down next to one of the men and engage openly in conversation? You may find that the man could help you with your calculus homework because he has a Ph.D. in mathematics. He may offer some valuable insight regarding your interactions with your parents. He may share his happiness about discovering a new Jazz musician or his sadness because a friend just died of AIDS.

You will certainly encounter suffering. The man's stories may stick around in your head once you leave the soup kitchen, and you will ruminate on them, reviewing the details worriedly in circles. When you come home, your spouse may get frustrated with you because all you talk about is the stories from the soup kitchen and you don't pay attention to them. This is not engagement from the standpoint of bearing witness. This is the road to burnout.

Being fully present to another person without clinging is medicine, not poison. Meaningful engagement deepens your heart and helps you be more fully present to any given situation that comes up — at the soup kitchen, with your spouse or in solitude. You can be deeply present to other peoples' joy and suffering while they are sharing with you. You can let it wash through you to your bones and then let it pass. This way, you can feel deep joy or sadness without the added edge of anxiety.

If you venture out to remember society's forgotten people, and you do so with a spirit of presence and equanimity, you can experience deep fulfillment and wholeness. If you deepen your practice of moving outside your comfort zone, letting go of fixed ideas and bearing witness to the joy and suffering around you, loving actions will emerge that reduce suffering in the world. There are many ways to cultivate such presence and equanimity. Some compliment their social engagement with meditation or prayer. Cultivating a connection to the Oneness of life or to God means that we can both be perfectly content with the perfection of the world exactly as it is and do loving actions to make it better.

There are infinite forms that our loving actions can take. Perhaps we help an injured woman walk up the stairs. Perhaps we create jobs and affordable housing for hundreds of people off the streets. The Zen Peacemakers did just that in the 1980s in Yonkers, N.Y. The Zen Peacemakers, along with Jeff Bridges, are currently developing "Let All Eat" Cafés, centers that provide free community meals with love and dignity. Other offerings we made did not achieve their intended goal. Our loving actions can make big contributions to reduce suffering, but we are not attached to those results. After any particular offering, we simply regroup, reevaluate, note lessons for the future and return to the practice of our three tenets: not-knowing, bearing witness and loving actions.

Volunteering in Nature: What can we learn about chaplaincy? by Julie Connelly

Julie Connelley, a physician, is a Upaya Chaplaincy Candidate in Cohort 4.__________

I joined Wendy Hochstetler, SNP botanist at 8:30am to climb 3 miles along the Saddle Trail to the summit of Old Rag Mountain (elevation 3,291) which is one of the most popular hikes in Shenandoah National Park. The mountain has two summits, one heavily used by thousands of hikers during the year. The summit outcrop is formed of Old Rag Granite boulders over a billion years old and exposed during the Alleghenian Orogeny. Fabulous 360 degree views are present from the summit. The mountain attracts many weekend hikers from Northern Virginia due to its accessibility, fantastic views, and geological formations that require endurance and agility along the 10 mile ridge trail.

The purpose of our trip was for Wendy to introduce me to the “Old Rag Summit Restoration Maintenance and Monitoring Project” and train me in details of observing and recording...

The project began in 2010 to: 1) begin restoration activities designed to protect a rare plant, Minuartia groenlandica (MINGRO), and 2) improve the heavily impacted areas of the summit. There are 13 restoration areas: 11 on the main eastern summit and 2 on the western summit. Wendy and I loaded our backpacks with tools needed to make repairs to fenced areas, replace signs, and remove debris, and gear for recording our experience such as cameras and note pads. And chocolate! We spent the day on the two summits evaluating each of the 13 sites, making interventions needed and assessing the plant colonies. We joined another SNP ranger who is tracking Peregrine Falcon activity along an extended expanse of exposed outcrop that descends into the valley floor. We arrived back at the car at 4:30PM – very happy and feeling wonderful after spending a beautiful warm spring day on the mountain.

The SNP needs volunteers to visit the mountain frequently due to the heavy use of the area. I have volunteered to visit once each month to continue the process that I learned with Wendy.

Reasons for Visit: What was learned?

One reason I joined the Upaya Chaplaincy program was for my own well-being and healing; the program offered the gift of renewal and exploration. The “Environmental Chaplaincy” aspect of the program was immediately inviting. This field trip represented an opportunity to explore further the ideas of environmental chaplaincy as well as the chaplaincy of personal care.

The term ”environmental chaplaincy” has become problematic for me. During our experience at Prajna, I realized that the term “environmental” fosters suffering in several ways: 1) people and the environment appear to be separate as if they could exist independently; 2) those individuals who respect and value the environment seem to know themselves as separate from other humans who do not have the same perspective, and at times “war-like” antagonism manifests between the two, 3) the activists or supporters of the environment often suffer burnout related to their anger and frustration.

I enjoyed reading the article by Roshi Joan and Marty Peale directing attention toward “ecological chaplaincy.” Ecology as a scientific term recognizes the relationships among all members of populations and communities. There is no “we or them” in this concept of ecology; everything is interrelated, interdependent. I like this term much better than environmental chaplaincy, but I wonder how the spirit world of animals, plants, rocks, wind, water, even place can be understood in the term ecological chaplaincy. I feared that spirit would not be included, as it may be too mysterious or an unfamiliar understanding among many people.

I began to consider the term “relational chaplaincy” which in part grows from my shamanic studies reflecting the presence of spirit. In shamanic practice, there is no single individual. Everything and everyone, animate and inanimate, are in relationship. The world of spirit manifests directly; independent function without respect to relationship is not possible from this perspective. I do think “relational chaplaincy” has great appeal, yet others might see it as redundant, for instance, isn’t all chaplaincy relational? Can any type of caregiving occur without relationship?

I have also explored the idea of “nature-based chaplaincy,” a term that I really like, but I discovered the term is being used to describe the work of Pagan chaplains. Nature Chaplaincy is another possibility, and I have seen this term used by a chaplain/chaplaincy program in Boston by chaplains who focus on nature as the healing tool. Although, I like this very much, the specialization, e.g., Nature Chaplain reminds me of the fragmentation of medical care into sub-specialties by body parts. I do wonder if all chaplains should not be fully informed about the central role that nature plays in the lives of many people, how to assess the role of nature, how to evaluate the loss of this connection during illness states or dying, and how to establish a re-connection with nature via the chaplains perspective and skills. These thoughts reflect the background ideas before joining the ranger for the visit, although we discussed some of them during our time together.

One reason I joined Old Rag Master Naturalists program was to spend more time in SNP, so when this opportunity arose I wanted to be involved. The project is helping me address self-care, needed among chaplains (and everyone). The project brings me the happiness of being in natural places, exercise and experience of body in nature, the place supports my interest in photography as part of the scientific project as well as aesthetically (I can arrive for sunrise or stay for sunsets). Being in such a place brings gratitude for my own life, opportunities, relationships, and health. From the top of the mountain, my perspective moved over from near to far and back again, including everything and nothing at once.

Insights:

Sources of happiness: 1) being in the natural environment, especially deep in nature brings me happiness and ease, 2) being a volunteer on a project to protect a rare plant as well as connecting with the impact of visitors on the mountain top brings joy (some psychologist[s] call this flourishing) and meaning, 3) joining the team of volunteers and the SNP staff brings a sensation of collective joy, of joining, of relating, of working together (I think anthropologist, Eddie Turner’s book Communitas focuses on this arising of joy – it is ordered but not read, yet), 4) the joy of being earth, air, fire, water were all appreciated as we hiked and explored the mountain and its surrounding, and 5) the joy of being in relationship and an integral part of the whole.

I’ve been working with the Paramitas, especially generosity and inclusivity. I began after visiting Prajna last summer where I received from nature the message, “Learn to Receive.” I’m becoming acutely aware of the balance needed between giving and receiving among caregivers. I see now that I receive from nature (the mountain, in this case) – beauty, joy, stillness, peace, mystery, impermanence and change, the flow of experience in the moment just by feeling the wind, for instance. And in this project, I will give in return to the mountain because the mountain is part of the whole. It gives to all who visit, and it has needs that require deep listening, presence, and commitment.

I remember Marty’s teaching about edges and there were several that arose during our work together. They include: 1) I asked Wendy about providing educational information at specific sites to encourage public participation. She explained that some people will destroy the rare plants if they recognize them. Destruction due to hatred of something or someone, I suppose. One group of hikers asked us some questions. Later she later suggested that I not point out the rare plants unless directly asked. Some people will collect them to sell. So, to educate holds an edge in this project, an edge that calls for compassion toward anyone with such misunderstanding about the natural world and his/her part in it. 3) It is obvious that some people do not respect or appreciate habitats and ecosystems. They litter, they disrupt, they intentionally, perhaps without really knowing, do not follow suggestions regarding where not to walk. I wonder how this would change if everyone really explored the meaning of “do no harm.” 4) The main summit is severely overused. What is the best response from the SNP? Limit access? Educate? Restore? Their approach for now is to encourage volunteers like myself to be active, participate, care about the park – to engage service, rather than limit visitation.

Applications: This experience helped me understanding suffering more broadly. Suffering: I wonder does the mountain suffer when it experiences humans who are not awake to ecology? Who trample? Who litter? Who are not feel[ing] happy even in the beauty of nature? What is the mountain’s experience? Does it practice the Paramitas, too, being generous to all, no matter? Does the mountain have compassion for all, no matter their actions? I experienced suffering too. I remember hiking to the summit of Old Rag in the past; I remember I didn’t pay much attention to the details of place, the habitat, other than the spectacular views. I felt a deep sadness that we often don’t recognize and live from the interdependent nature of everything. We don’t always live aware that our actions create conditions in our lives. Suffering also arises from the perception of humans that they are separate and independent of the natural world (which is separate and distinct from themselves). This results in the absence of appreciation of the ways that every action and every choice impact the whole that we are all a part of.

I learned that chaplains need to stop, listen deeply, and find out what type of self-care they need. Not everyone will want to be in nature, but everyone needs to know what activities or places support, nourish, restore their connections with and experience of who and what they truly are.

Chaplains need to recognize that nature is for many individuals a source of love, appreciation, peace, and joy, often a place where they can be restored and nourished. Chaplains need skills to assess the importance and meaning of nature to individuals, as well realize that the loss of connection to nature due to illness or dying may result in suffering. Such a focus on nature needs to be essential assessment area.

Do no harm: At one place a fence had been installed to protect the habitat beyond, but the strong winds moving the fence to and fro had denuded the area beneath. This reminded me of the Precepts – do no harm. We need to be aware that one action with good intention can have the opposite impact.

I wonder if chaplains aware of the value and benefit of nature on healing our wounds might be able to work with environmental activists burned out and in need of the nature they love.

This experience helped me understand and experience the teaching: To volunteer in an area outside of one’s expertise that speaks to one’s inner longing will lead to flourishing, collective happiness, joy in the moment.

Food, Love, and Suffering...a Musing: Lily Brown

The other day in zazen, I had this idea: nutmeg roasted bananas. I thought I would slice the bananas in half long-ways, arrange them in a baking pan, baste them with a mixture of melted butter and maple syrup, and then freshly grate a nutmeg seed on top of them. I would roast them pretty hot, in a 375 or 400 degree oven, so that, ideally, they would brown in what I was hoping would become a banana/maple/nutmeg caramel sauce.

Bananas grow on big trees that aren’t actually trees. It looks like a palm tree, but it is actually a perennial herb that grows a complete new “trunk”, up to 40 feet tall, every year, and dies back to its roots once it has fruited. Most species grow in warm, wet climates with really dark, rich soil, which I think you can taste in how creamy and sweet they are. Humans have been eating bananas for as long as we can tell. In an Islamic myth, probably of Indian origin, the banana was the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden (which was fittingly located in what is now Sri Lanka.) Alexander the Great and his army encountered them on trees in India in the 4th century BCE. The banana made it’s way to China in about CE 200, and perhaps arrived in Africa around the same time. A Spanish missionary took roots of a banana tree from the Canary Islands to America, and it has since been cultivated in Central America and northern parts of South America. Up until the 1870’s, bananas were considered a luxury anywhere they didn’t grow, because they hadn’t been bred to ship well and ripen slowly. All that changed when two American entrepreneurs started cultivating and shipping commercial bananas, a variety called the Gros Michel. In the early 20th century, the worldwide cultivation of these bananas was all but wiped out by a fungus. They were much sweeter and tastier than the replacement variety we see in our grocery stores today, the Cavendish banana, which is actually currently in danger of the same fate as the Gros Michel as the same fungus spreads to their roots on plantations all over the world.

I reach through with my imagination. I reach back into bananas — the box I take them out of to arrange them in baskets in our dinning room, the car ride from the co-op which brings them to us, the truck they come to the co-op on, the landscapes of the long journey, the hands and voices of the people loading them onto the truck, the music the truck driver listens to, and his thoughts, the hands that arrange them so nicely in the box, the hands that pick them from the banana tree which is actually bizarrely classified as an herb, the season of growing, the wind which strips the leaves into tatters, the sounds of the birds around, the smells, the bugs that live on the tree, the bacteria that lives in the dirt, the sun, that enormous ball of fire which warms our entire situation, the banana which enters my thoughts in zazen, forms a destiny together with maple syrup, butter, and nutmeg, and eventually, the next day I'm on the schedule to make breakfast and our banana supply is plentiful enough, get cooked, eaten, digested, become the bodies of the Upaya residents who are trying their best in zazen. Bananas born in zazen, died for zazen, renewed in zazen. Okay.

All these questions come up in my imagining. Like the truck driver: how is he doing? Is he lonely in his life? Does spending so much time sitting in the truck cause health problems? Does he like bananas? Is he eating a lot of Cheetos and Snickers from gas stations? Is he free beyond my wildest wishes of freedom? What about the people who pick the bananas from the trees? Are they getting paid enough to eat good food? Do they have families? Do they laugh often? Do they tell jokes at the plantation? Are they careful with the bugs flying around them? Endless questions come up about these bananas. Not to mention maple syrup . . .

Which comes from the sap of sugar maple trees and black maple trees, mostly in Canada. I watched a YouTube video about this process once, made by a skinny, pale, excited teenage boy with big thick glasses. It was a great video, very detailed and personal, starting in this boy's own backyard with a sugar maple tree and ending in his family's kitchen with his whole family coming in and out of the frame, getting snacks and talking about dinner plans. First, he took some type of sharp implement with a hole in it and stuck it into the tree, after determining which was a good one to drain. And the tree's sap just poured out, as clear and thin as water, into a bucket that the boy had placed just below the tree. He drained a few trees, if I remember correctly, until he had at least 10 gallons of sap. (It takes 40 gallons of sap to make just 1 gallon of syrup.) Then he took it inside to boil it in a bunch of different pots on the stove, forever and ever, to steam the water off and reduce the syrup into what we pour on our waffles. It takes hours and hours to boil it all off, and there was so much steam that the kitchen had condensation dripping from the walls and the cabinets, which the videographer showed with a close-up. I would love to take a sip of that sap, right after it came from the tree, so thin and clear. I wonder how sweet it is. I wonder if it tastes more like a tree than the syrup that I buy in a bottle.

The boy also said that draining the trees in this way doesn't seem to cause them any harm, which was my first question after I saw him stick that sharp tube into the tree and the sap just poured out like from a faucet. Right now, there is a lot of concern about our planet. There is concern that we are causing a lot of harm. There is concern that if we really look at all the harm we are causing we will be overwhelmed. There is concern that being overwhelmed won't be a very helpful state. There is also concern that there isn't enough concern about the harm we are causing. There is concern that, despite our best intentions, anything we do will be harmful. I myself have all of these concerns.

Nutmeg, as with all spices as far as I know of, has a history tangled with human greed. When the Portuguese reached the area in Indonesia where the nutmeg tree is native, in 1514, they were able to acquire a monopoly of the trade, which they held for almost a century, until the Dutch wrested control from them in the beginning of the 17th century with the foundation of the Dutch E. Indian empire. They maintained their monopoly for over 150 years, until a 1770 French expedition returned to Mauritius with nutmeg seedlings, after which it found a home in Grenada, a more suitable climate for them. It is one of the two spices that come from the nutmeg tree, the other being mace. The fruit of the nutmeg is thin and translucent, often peeled away, dried, and eaten in countries that cultivate nutmeg. Apparently it tastes a bit like dried ginger. Inside the fruit is mace, the outside protection of the seed inside, which is the nutmeg. They thrive in tropical conditions near the sea, and prefer volcanic soils (does this have something to do with it's warmth, I wonder?) It also has a narcotic effect if consumed in large amounts. I wonder if nutmeg tastes different if you are trying to be the sole possessor of its trade, if it is the source of your livelihood or political status. I wonder if it's flavor comes to taste like power, control, or oppression.

I've had this funny feeling for the past little while — days or weeks or months or years, I am not sure. The feeling is that I wanted . . . everything that my life is, and the world, this world, with my parents, and dirt, and a caterpillar on my finger, and wild anguished crying, and sunburns, and the blue flames of gas burners, salt sprinkling through my fingers, the clanging crashing sounds that happen in the kitchen when everything seems to be going wrong, the rain just falling water, this zen practice always moving through everything, the sudden heartbreaking realization that my meditation isn't actually very relaxed, big questions about bananas and the build up of a concern that doesn't have any clue about how to reconcile itself, reflections on the past endeavors of all humans and cultures that have ever existed, my mother who is trying slowly, painfully to throw away boxes of my spelling tests and stick figure drawings from third grade . . . that I wanted all of it before I even arrived, that the wanting of it birthed me, in a way, I guess that I actually . . . like it . . . love it . . . all of these seeming problems, I actually love them. They are okay.

When I first read Mary Oliver's poem "Wild Geese", I was in high school. I had this feeling that was like "Thank God!" and "Sva Ha!" and "I Now Fully Atone" all at the same time. She says, "You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You have only to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." And I felt in saying it she was talking to herself, and that in sharing it she was requesting we say it to ourselves, and now, as a really popular poem, a whole lot of people have requested that this be a way, that this be a mantra of sorts, for a loving way that is always available to be made. And that this loving way is actually all inclusive, that maybe suffering moved bananas and maple syrup and nutmeg into my breakfast bowl, or maybe love moved them into my breakfast bowl, and we do not quite know which it was, and that with close inspection it may be impossible to distinguish suffering from love anyway. Which is, I think, what I have written all of this to propose, as a hypothesis. If we look at history, and food cultivation, and eating, and flavor, and problems, as deeply as we can, right into the wrinkles of hands picking bananas, and the make-up of soil, and the flavor of warmth, and the beginning sensations which can end up turning into greed, what will we find as the source of this movement, the movement that puts food in our breakfast bowls? I'd like to ask. I'd like for us all to ask. And after the meal, as we wash the dishes, I'd like to feel that we are doing our best, that we are happy, and that all the movement that filled our stomachs is a gesture we have understood, and accepted, and that we have some clear feeling of our responding gesture.

Some practical notes on Bananas and Nutmeg:

Bananas give off an unusual amount of ethylene gas, which is produced in the ripening process (starches being converted into sugars) and causes further ripening. This means that if you put a banana in a paper bag with a green tomato, you might have a red tomato in a few days. This is also a great way to soften up hard avocados.

The chemistry of nutmeg is such that aroma and flavor disappear quickly once a nutmeg is grated. The best way to work with this is to buy whole nutmeg seeds and a nutmeg grater, and to grate immediately before the need arises.

Slipstreaming Into Spring: Lisl Dennis

Lisl Dennis, Merle Lefkoff PhD, Ann-Marie McKelvey, LPCC, MCC, and Roshi Eido Frances Carney will conduct a retreat at Upaya September 14 - 16, STORY SHARDS: Gathering for Women in the World. Click here for more information and to register.__________

Spring has sprung – and rivers run with snow melt and assorted shapes of frozen particulate. I am in the slipstream along the Rio Blanco for a brief spell. My mind awash with nonlocal counter-currents and global conflicts – the world spinning either too fast or too slow – I am seeking refuge and steeping myself in this local flow along a river running south of Pagosa Springs, CO. This intimate safe place offers me quietude, creative opening, and an entering into a multivalent slipstream of awareness – every stomp of the way...

Read and watch the rest of Lisl's latest blog entry, including photographs and music, at:

UPCOMING PROGRAM NEWS

April/May Retreats

April 1: ZAZENKAI: A daylong meditation retreat led by Sensei Arlene Lueck of San Francisco Zen Center. Please join us for the opportunity of a day of practice with Green Gulch's Tanto and Upaya's Visiting Teacher. For more info or to register, click here.

April 6 – 8: COMING HOME: A Buddhist Retreat on Easter and Passover with Sharon Salzberg and Roshi Joan Halifax. For more info or to register, click here.

April 12 – 15: RETREAT ON CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE AND RITUALS IN SERVICE TO THE DYING with Frank Ostaseski and Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD. For more info or to register, click here.

April 27 – 29: ZEN MIND, YOGA BODY with Do-An Robert Thomas and Samantha Ostergaard. Reduced price. For more info or to register, click here.

May 27: ZAZENKAI: A daylong silent meditation retreat with Wendy Johnson. Please join us for the opportunity of a day of practice with Upaya's Visiting Teacher. For more info or to register, click here.

Retreat Package

A RETREAT ON CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE AND RITUALS IN SERVICE TO THE DYING: Frank Ostaseski * Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD

Description: Register for both "Coming Home" and the "Retreat on Contemplative Practice and Rituals in Service to the Dying" for $890, with all housing and meals included for nine nights (this is a savings of more than $500).

Experience the integration of yoga practice and Zen meditation, and explore how the body and mind can work together to achieve clarity, stability, and relaxation. As long-time practitioners of both yoga and Zen Buddhism, Samantha and Robert integrate yoga and Zen as complementary spiritual practices, supporting and guiding the group with a combination of yoga practice, sitting meditation, and lively discussion. The yoga practice will prepare your body and mind for meditation, and will be for all levels of ability. No previous meditation or Buddhist experience necessary — beginners are welcome!

Cost: $180, includes tuition, food, dormitory lodging.

Do-An Robert Thomas is a Zen Buddhist priest in the lineage of Rev. Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, author of the modern spiritual classic Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, and founder of the first Soto Zen Buddhist monastery outside of Asia, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center.

Robert’s dharma name, given to him when he was ordained as a priest in 2000, is Shi-Zan Do-An (Lion Mountain, Path of Kindness). He has been practicing Zen Buddhism since 1993, and in 2008 he received “Dharma Transmission” from his teacher, Zoketsu Norman Fischer. From 1994 to 2000 he trained intensively as a Zen monk at Tassajara, practicing intimately with many Zen teachers (including Tenshin Reb Anderson, Zenkei Blanche Hartman, Shisan Edward Brown, Sojun Mel Weitsman, Ryushin Paul Haller and others).

He was ordained as a Zen priest in 2000 by Zoketsu Norman Fischer, and has enjoyed studying and practicing with a number of Tibetan and Theravadan Buddhist teachers.

Today, Robert leads Zen retreats and workshops, and gives public lectures throughout the year. The expression of his Buddhist practice in his teachings has been focused on helping people from all walks of life to realize the practical benefits of Zen practice and meditation (zazen), and extend the Zen mind, with its qualities of openness, clarity, and flexibility, into every moment of their life.

For many years Robert has been in a leadership role serving the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC) sangha, one of the largest Buddhist communities outside of Asia, and since 2005 he has been the President and CEO, overseeing the administration of all three SFZC practice centers (Tassajara, Green Gulch Farm, and City Center), as well as guiding its mission of bringing the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha to the world.

Since 1993, Robert has traveled extensively in Asia, most often with his wife, Samantha Ostergaard, studying and practicing in the Theravadan and Tibetan Buddhist traditions, and at monasteries and practice centers in Thailand, India, Nepal, Burma, Laos, and Cambodia.

Robert’s university training is in fine art and filmmaking, and he has had a career as a film/video director, a magazine editor/creative director, and a small business owner. He continues to draw as often as he can and enjoys watching movies. He loves to hike and run regularly, and also takes great pleasure in cooking and reading.

Samantha Ostergaard is a Zen student and yoga teacher who has used yoga to support her zazen practice for over ten years. She lived and practiced at Tassajara for three years, receiving lay ordination from Zoketsu Norman Fischer in 2000. Her teaching of yoga is deeply influenced by Zen practice.

Update! Pilgrimage to China, September 14 - 28, 2012

PILGRIMAGE TO CHINA: In the Footsteps of Zen Master Dogenwith Sensei Kazuaki Tanahashi

Price Change! Double occupancy, $3200 per person; Single occupancy, $4000. If there are 10 or more participants: Double occupancy, $3000 per person; single occupancy, $3800. For a full description of the program and to register, click here.

BECOMING MORE INVOLVED WITH UPAYA

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Visiting and Resident Teachers

Upaya has invited a series of teachers to be with Upaya's residents and guest practitioners this year. These teachers will be supporting practice, giving dharma talks, doing interviews, doing service training, and leading seminars; we invite you to meet and practice with these dharma holders.

Resident Teacher: Roshi Joan Halifax: April 29 – May 25, June 22 – September 8, October 25 – December 30

Ways to be at Upaya: Path of Service, Guest Practitioner, Volunteer

There are many ways to deepen your practice and spend time at Upaya. One way is the Path of Serviceprogram. Upaya is accepting applications for our Path of Service resident program, inviting practitioners to live and serve here from three months to a year or more. For more information and to apply click here or contact: pos@upaya.org

Please visit this web page on our site to learn more about other options for staying at Upaya, including personal retreats, work exchange, and more.

An application is required. If accepted, there is a process of mutual discernment. This is an extraordinary way to be in a rich practice, educational, and service community, with access to excellent teachers and a vital sangha and practice.